Is there a way to have AMR Best in Bag feature to preserve the enchants and gems for a specified spec (main spec)?
For example, my main spec balance druid and I all of my gems are haste. However, I do heal from time to time outside of raid. Every time I try to used the Best in Bag AMR feature for my Restoration Specs it has me switching all my gems and enchants to fit a restoration druid. I want it to factor in that my main spec is Balance and that XYZ pieces of gear are part of my Best in Bag Balance gear set. In other words, I am not re-enchanting and re-geming!

In “step 1” of best-in-bags, it shows your spec priority. Make sure that Balance is at the top of the list (drag to reorder) and it should do exactly what you describe, preserve enchants/gems on gear shared with your balance spec when optimizing a less important spec.

I’d love to see how it was before where was it was a simple click to see the other spec best-in-bag configuration. Now I have to start from scratch by ordering my spec priorities. And doing that means it will recommend gear that I’ve already gem/enchanted/etc to gear for my actual primary spec.

I think that you might not be understanding how the spec priority setting is working.

The spec priority is set once for your character. Once you have set it, you don’t need to change it. For example, on my Paladin, my desired priority is Protection, Retribution, Holy. So I set that order either from step 1 of best-in-bags, or from the settings window opened via the filter/funnel icon at the top-middle of the main toolbar at the top of the page.

So no matter which spec I have active, it will always give Protection first priority on stuff, Retribution second, then Holy last.

The gear shown on the best-in-bags result always goes with whatever your active spec is. You can change that by clicking on your character name at the top-left of the page in the big main toolbar – your other specs appear below your name, just click on one to change it.

When you import from our in-game addon by pasting data either into the area on best-in-bags or the main character loader opened by clicking on your name, it will always set your active spec to whatever it is currently in-game.

Gotcha. I presume that’s been the better way to do things now that gear stats change when you change specs. I’m still used to the first iteration of it since I took a break from the game to come back and see this site change so much. Before it the spec seemed to treat their configurations more separately.

So, for example, if there’s a clearly more dps favourable trinket (though I’m primarily a tank), I would then change my profile’s priority or just make the manual choice?

Best in Bags should work exactly the same as it did in previous version of our site, with one major difference for Legion: it supports all specs at once instead of just two (a primary and secondary like we used to have it). That’s why you set a spec “priority” now – so it can do all 3 (or 4 for druids).

So if I set Protection as my highest priority spec and run best-in-bags, it will always gem and enchant gear optimally for my tank spec first. Now let’s say I want to build my best possible Retribution spec. So I switch specs to Retribution and press best-in-bags. And let’s say that my necklace that is good for my Protection spec just has great stats, so it is also best for my Retribution spec. It’s going to tell me to leave Mark of the Heavy Hide on it (a pure tanking enchant) even when using it for Retribution, because the enchant on that particular item is “locked in” for a higher-priority spec.

Now what is likely to happen instead… is the optimizer will suggest putting on your 2nd-best necklace and enchanting it with Mark of the Hidden Satyr instead. Even though the item itself isn’t as good as your other necklace, the fact that it is “free” to be enchanted for DPS makes it a better choice for your Retribution set.

If you want a completely unrestricted best-in-bags optimization for any spec, you would have to make it the top-priority spec. That can get expensive though if you have to keep swapping around gems and enchants… most people prefer to just set a priority and stick to it.